The Forbidden Room

Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson

The movie is a succession of scenes and characters with no logical relation to each other, or perhaps it is truer to say it is an infinite recession of universes, rabbit holes within rabbit holes, worlds folded inside each other like a Russian doll.

Peter Bradshaw / The Guardian

Subsequent episodes come and go as if in a fabricated fever dream that slips in and out between black-and-white and early color, immaculate images and damaged ones, brilliance and triteness. Out of nowhere come passages featuring parachuting onto an erupting volcanic island, a squid thief, a doctor imprisoned by women in skeleton outfits, Udo Kier getting a lobotomy to cure his butt-pinching habit and a typical silent film blind mother.

Todd McCarthy / The Hollywood Reporter

The main point is to experience it intensely – the bigger the screen, the better, seriously – and to get as close as possible to the joyfully irrational state of mind that produced it. Maddin remains a unique treasure, and The Forbidden Room is one hell of a trove.